Animists – The Curse of Nations

Animists are set of humans whose behaviour is clouded in Animism. Animism is an acquired behavioral disorder which negates human values and culture. Animists are curse to the society; they viciously keep away from science and secular trends; they are idlers exploiting nation-country resources for their selfish motives.

Word ‘Animism’ owes its origin to Latin word ‘anima’. Anima means breath or soul both of which are believed to possess consciousness. Animism covers almost all religions because religions believe that it is soul that sustains life. According to the belief, humans sustain life because of soul and without soul survival of humans is impossible. Since ‘anima’ also means breath, it has to be assumed that animism pertains to living organisms which breathe air as its basic life sustaining mechanism. The concepts of soul, spirit and supernatural powers dwell in human mind: The concepts have no place outside human thoughts.

Since the concepts of the spirit world and supernatural powers have no objective reality in the physical realms of universe, they are subjective imaginations: All subjective imaginations can be classified as beliefs. Therefore animism and its attributes confine itself within the boundaries of beliefs.

As animism dwells in beliefs, the origin of belief needs a go through. Except for humans, animals and other living organisms have no ability to believe anything. Their brain cells are not capable of that activity. They have, therefore, no idea of god, spirits and other supernatural entities and therefore they are outside the periphery of animism.

The case of humans is different: Long before homo sapiens paved their way to reach the stage of civil society, what the wandering prehistoric humans, wandering for food and shelter in the dangerous terrain on the surface of the earth, feared the most was wild animals, thunder, lightning, rains and floods. Illnesses, hunger and thirst supplemented their fears. Fear of death haunted their thoughts: Consequently, the prehistoric humans started believing that all the painful occurrences were the creation of unknown powers: The humans thereupon, started their search for identifying the unknown powers. The search moulded beliefs of soul, spirit and supernatural powers. The beliefs were born out of fear: Animism is therefore a part of the belief system. When modern religion evolved as a system of beliefs in supernatural entities, the religions and its followers became the thresholds of animism.

According to belief, spirit world belongs to different categories of spirits: A section of the spirits are the souls of the diseased, others are inherent in nature. The nature-inherent spirits are intermediaries between humans and the omnipotent god who is the supreme hero of the spirit world. Followers of different religions then devised system of prayers to seek the help of the intermediaries for benevolence of the spirit world: Their prayer-formulations were set in different directions according to the scopes and aims of benevolence from the spirit world in matters of human needs and for help on occasions of illnesses, natural furies, wars, harvests, childbirths, marriages, studies, jobs and other conditions where human efforts are believed to be beyond its reach and where interference of the spirit world is unavoidable. Alongside, sections of believers went after the disembodied soul of the diseased to get their whims satisfied by invoking the ghostly spirit world. For the purpose, they created rituals and sorceries including sacrifices as a part of their belief system to satiate the hungry ghosts.

Animism has undergone significant changes as time passed on: One of the changes that took place was removal of the concept of soul, spirit and the spirit world from animism. For the modernists animism is associated with extraordinary preoccupation with physical appetites and body-needs rather than spirits and souls. Animists today are the naughty ones who exploit others for satisfying their needs, for filling their stomach and for amassing wealth by resorting to all available tactics which include dubious propaganda and annihilation of the opponents. Spiritualists, spiritual gurus, religions, religious followers, sorcerers, ritualists and organizations working for the cause of spirits, souls, ghosts and other supernatural powers in some way or the other are epicenter of animism.

All believers are therefore animists. Similarly all humans who are addicted with excessive thirst for amassing resources for physical needs are animists. Animists are shame to society. Animists are exploiters of national wealth. Animists are enemies of secular social order: Animists are factually the curse of Nations.